Author: Robert

Mozilla is offering in-browser application development features for its Firefox browser with its WebIDE project. The technology helps developers build, edit, and test Web applications from within a browser.

Now featured in Firefox Nightly Builds, which are builds for testing purposes, WebIDE is intended to assist developers who are not sure how to start application development on the Web. “We’re solving that problem with WebIDE, built directly into Firefox. Instead of starting from zero, we provide you with a functioning blueprint app with the click of a button,” said Dave Camp and Robert Nyman of the Mozilla.hacks.org blog in a post this week. “You then have all the tools you need to start creating your own app based on a solid foundation.”

Java proponents want to set up an incubator project that would explore advanced virtual machine and language features for the software development platform.

Project Valhalla, which is being floated as an idea on an openjdk mailing list, would incubate such features as value types, generic specialization, enhanced volatiles, and reified generics. Features under consideration are considered long-term, and it is unlikely any would be targeted for inclusion in Java 9, which has been set for a 2016 arrival. Java 8 was released in March.

Major items in Valhalla, including value types and specialization, are intended to deal with the issue of boxing, according to background material on the Valhalla project. A boxed integer takes more memory and requires a de-reference to get payload, which generally causes a cache miss. The idea is that small aggregates — custom numeric types like complex or uint128, small tuples, and algebraic data types — can get the abstraction benefits of objects while maintaining the performance characteristics of primitives.

“It’s not that Linux was new from a technical standpoint. It was new because it was done differently,” says Linus Torvalds in his interview with the IEEE Computer Society. “Linux made it clear how well open source works, not just from a technical standpoint, but also from a business, commercial, and community standpoint.”

Torvalds, winner of the Society’s 2014 Computer Pioneer Award, discusses his past and his future in a video interview, and he expounds on the philosophy that got him where he is today. He says the most important goal for programmers is “finding something you’re really interested in so that you continue to tinker with it and get really good.” And he eschews the notion of a long-term road map not just for personal growth — better to follow what you truly enjoy than to be dogmatic about a career plan — but for technology as well. “The five-year plan doesn’t work in technology,” he notes, “because nobody has a great view of what’s coming up.”

The latest version of the Eclipse IDE, Luna, has been released today, with support for Java 8 right out of the box — fitting for an IDE that is itself developed in Java.

New releases of Eclipse are announced annually, with the last version, Kepler, having dropped on June 26 of last year. Each year’s product release cycle for the Eclipse Foundation involves upgrades and additions to not just the Eclipse IDE itself, but a whole “train” of projects, tools, and add-ons associated with Eclipse. The current release covers 76 projects and includes 61 million lines of code provided by 340 different committers.

My previous post in this three-part series on the java.lang.Object class and its methods covered finalize(), getClass(), and hashCode(). In this post, you explore toString(), the wait/notification methods, and Object‘s methods in an interface and Java 8 context.

String Representation

Q: What does the toString() method accomplish?

A: The toString() method returns a string representation of the object on which this method is called. The returned string is useful for debugging purposes.

Q: What does the string representation look like when toString() isn’t overridden?

Hippies can be traced back to a late 19th century German naturmenschen countercultural movement that embraced nudity, paganism, and natural foods. (Gordon Kennedy wrote a good photo-filled book about the movement called Children of the Sun. Here’s an article he co-wrote with a lot of the same info and photos.)

The movement spread to California in the early 1900s, where a few young men grew long hair and beards and lived in primitive cabins in the Palm Springs area. The most famous of them was William Pester, the Hermit of Palm Springs. (Both photos of Pester shown here were taken in 1917.)

Nikon has been trying to take the throne from Canon as the champion of DSLR video, and today its unveiling a new camera designed to step up the fight: the Nikon D810. The D810 is the successor to the D800, Nikons first real shot at taking down Canons highly regarded 5D series. The D800 made a really strong case for itself with generally comparable features to the 5D Mark III and a lower price, and the D810 builds right off of that.

Given how dominant YouTube is as a place for young people to listen to music, it’s notable how slow Google has been to embrace radio partnerships. But the company is announcing an interesting move in that direction tonight: it’s launching a weekly radio show on Sirius XM Hits 1, the satellite radio service’s top station for pop music. “The YouTube 15,” which will be hosted by YouTube personality Jenna Marbles, will air on Fridays starting July 11th at 6 PM ET, and replay throughout the weekend.

Charlie Stross’s keynote speech to the Yet Another Perl Conference is an inspired riff on the weird, gradual-then-sudden nature of technological change. As Charlie points out, almost everything today — including the people — was around 20 years ago, and most what’s around now will be around in 20 years. But there will be some changes that would shock your boots off. Improbably, he manages to tie this all into perl programming, which, apparently, is the future of smart sidewalks. Charlie’s thoughtfully provided a transcript of his talk, and there’s a video for those who prefer to hear his rather good comic delivery.

Google’s I/O developer conference happened today, and the company held its keynote address to give an overview of all the news it revealed at the event. The changes included a preview of the upcoming version of Android, dubbed “L” for now, which brings a new design paradigm to Google’s OS that helps it work across different types of screens and devices. There were ups,… Read More

This week in Gweek we review Adam Parfrey and Cletus Nelson’s biography of famous kitsch artists, the Keanes. Plus: Plex media server, play putties, and much more. Brought to you by Random House Audio (click here for free downloads!)
and by Stamps.com (click here for a special $110 offer!) Read the rest

The theme of this year’s Google developer conference was putting Android everywhere, so it ought to be in the thing that takes people everywhere: the car. Android Auto works by plugging in an Android phone running the L operating system. The phone displays an “A” on the screen and you can no longer operate it. Instead, the phone sends up its information to your car’s display. Google calls it “casting,” but the key thing to know is that very little of the smarts of Android Auto live in the…

Two libraries in the US plan to offer programs that let patrons check out Wi-Fi hotspots like they would books. The New York Public Library and the Chicago Public Library are both recipients of funding from the Knight Foundation that will help launch separate Wi-Fi hotspot lending programs. Both plans aim to give low-income households 24-hour access to the internet. “Providing continuous access will expand [people’s] ability to participate fully in the modern economy and allow them to continue to learn, work, explore and create after the library’s doors have closed,” the NYPL said in its pitch.

The grocery chain known to some of us as “Whole Paycheck” must fork over $800K in fees and penalties for overcharging customers in California. An investigation revealed that the retailer overcharged customers. Read the rest

Today at Google’s I/O developer conference, Android Wear was a central topic of discussion. The LG G Watch was one of the devices on display, and it’s going live for pre-order at around 4:30 PM PT today. The Android-powered wearable device is set to retail for $229 and ship to buyers starting July 7, but I got a chance to use it early at a special press event today. Read More

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) query, the NSA today informed journalist Jason Leopold that it could not locate email pursuant to his request for “any and all emails written by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in which Mr. Snowden contacted agency officials through email to raise concerns about NSA programs.” Read More